In the Kitchen with OWTK

Another lovely weekend has come and gone. We made three attempts to go through a car wash. The first two - Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning at Duke's Firehouse car wash. We got in line on both trips and sat and sat and sat. The line was at least 12 cars deep and hardly moving. After about 10 minutes we fled. We pulled into another place on the way to Whole Foods this morning but it was not the kind of car wash that you ride through. Well, your car does but your family is forced out first. Where is the fun in that? For $16 I would like some in-car entertainment!
Again, we fled. So the car is still a grey, cruddy mess. I was hoping to have an 'after' shot to go along with this one. Maybe one night after work the line will be more accommodating.

We spent the whole afternoon and evening cooking. Our girl was helping a ton, which is always a treat. We made Lasagna from scratch with homemade meat sauce (gravy) - the first time we ever tried that (I have not tasted it yet...still in the oven...but it smells great). Our daughter is seen here dropping in the fresh basil (check out the action shot - basil in mid-air) and the dried oregano. We also made Beef Stew and ate it for dinner. Quite good. I needed to trim the meat a bit more and have the broth be more stew-ish and less soupy - but a solid meal overall (the crusty Italian bread helped!)

We whipped up some homemade applepearsauce too. Five apples (Fuji, Golden Delicious, Cameo) and one Asian Pear. Just peeled them, steamed them and tossed them into the food processor. The little one wore out the Cuisinart PULSE function!

One last thing...

Check out the Party Cupcake "recipe" on the back of a cool silicone baking tray we picked up at Target:

1 Chocolate Cake Mix
1 Can Vanilla Icing

...pretty original and informative, no?


Oh, two more things. We picked up a new sleeping bag at Target too. A Coleman youth bag for $20. No characters (yes, they do make products for kids without Dora and her pals - I am surprised as well).

Our girl wanted the red bag with grey and blue leaves inside but they also had pink with a cool abstract flower interior. I swear to god I did not push her towards the red over the pink! (Mom, I am talking to you). If I was nudging her towards anything it would have been the cool birthday party invites with the slightly sparkly chandelier on it...but she wanted the ones with the big in-your-face birthday cake. It is hard, but I am letting her make these types of decisions for herself. ha! About the party, we pretty much decided tonight that it will be at our house again. Justin Roberts is not playing with a full band at World Cafe Live on March 3rd. My desire to pay for a party of 28 has been severely diminished with that bit of news.

Hope your weekend was swell. Whatcha do?